Temple visit

A couple of weeks ago, the school invited us to dinner. They picked us up in the early afternoon and took us to a tea house. We sat and drank tea and chatted for a while...

then we walked over to a near by temple.

This was an active temple.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about going to temples. On one hand it is a glimpse of a different culture. Often times these temples have very beautiful grounds with lovely gardens and old trees...

But on the other hand I am very uncomfortable with idolatry! I feel very sad when I see people actually worshiping and praying to the idols.

These are used to burn incense and prayers written on paper.

With all the burning going on, they are bound to need some of these.

These are incense and fruit waiting to be offered

I was not really supposed to take this picture. There were desks set up with books to read. People will come here and read the "holy" texts and there are monks to answer questions.

I will leave you with a thought an then hopefully a video.

while we were looking at the statues and all, one of the Chinese said that it is not good to stand on the threshold of the temples. I asked why, and they really did not know. One person said it is disrespectful to the Buddha, and another person said because the thresholds were once made of wood and it would wear them down too quickly. Then a few days later, I was reading in the OT, look up and read 1Samuel 5:5.
I thought it was interesting.

Some sounds we heard while there: